Settling in

We can't believe February is practically here. It's been a busy couple of weeks as we get settled in. Our household effects from both DC and Berlin as well as our air freight arrived, so we've been busy unpacking boxes and getting things organized. David's parents joined us for a visit--Nicholas loved hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa, and they were a huge help as David especially worked to unpack and put together the nursery furniture. We are still waiting on our car, though. Port of Spain is definitely a driving city so we are a bit stuck until it arrives. Our biggest frustration, though, is that our diplo-cat Moe is still in Ohio. The plan had been for David's parents to bring him when they came, but Delta wouldn't let him on the plane. Long story short, he is still in Ohio and David will make a quick trip home to get him and bring him to Trinidad. We are experiencing some problems here in Trinidad with the quarantine, though, because the workers are on strike so they are not letting people in to visit their pets. We don't really want to bring Moe into this kind of situation so we are hoping the strike is resolved soon, and are waiting until the end of the month to go get him.

Other than that we are getting settled and starting to meet people. We are still looking for a nanny, another thing that is proving to be a challenge. We are keeping our hopes up, though.


On the up and up, we've now made two trips to the beach. We rented a car while David's parents were here, and David got to try his hand at right-hand drive, on windy roads through the mountains, none-the-less, in order to get to Maracas Bay. Here are some pics from our first few weeks in T&T:

This is at movie town, an open-air mall/movie theater/cluster of restaurants. It was calypso night.

Movie town-- we tried the Irish pub

Nicholas in his paw-print robe after a bath

the park in our neighborhood is right on the water. We were able to reach over the fence and zoom in on the crabs hanging out on the rocks.

view of downtown Port of Spain from our neighborhood park

the park

We can't believe Nicholas is 4 months old already!

a colleague lent us this bouncer chair which was a lifesaver before our things arrived.

David participated in (and won) the first annual embassy gold tournament, at a private club nearby called St. Andrews.

this was our stuff from Berlin arriving--miraculously not one piece of polish pottery was broken. Good job, Interdean!

Our first trip to the beach (Maracas Bay), last Sunday with Grandma and Grandpa Machak.

we had to stop for our Bake and Shark sandwich, just like the locals

this boat came pretty close to shore

we were invited up to the beach again this weekend with colleagues. the weather wasn't as nice--overcast and a bit windy--but we still had a great time

somebody was all tuckered out and took a nap on dad's lap, covered up of course

some of the locals were flying a kite until it got caught in the trees


So, we'll have a relaxing Sunday and another week of work. Hopefully we'll get our car soon so we can go enjoy the panyards and some of the carnival activities. We probably won't participate in carnival itself much because we're pretty sure most of it is not kid-friendly and we don't have a nanny yet, but we'll observe and get ready for next year.